Running on Empty

It's a good dinner -- a bit lonely, but with excellent food and service.

A few days later, I call Inhui Oh to ask her about the menu and the chef who created it, about the restaurant and her own background. The six-month-old Cuba Libre (and I Zen downstairs) is Oh's second restaurant. She ran a sushi bar in Aurora previous to this, considers her place in life to be in restaurants and in kitchens. But this is Russel's first time in the game. The chef, John Daly III, came from an exec's post at Wolfgang Puck's joint downtown, and from the country-club circuit before that. He's a culinary-school guy with no gut-level understanding of Cuban food other than what he picked up from books, but apparently he read a lot of books. Considering that he's cooking a cuisine that doesn't actually exist, his education wasn't wasted. Oh recognizes that, explaining that Daly has tried to create a menu that presumes what might have happened had Cuban cuisine developed unfettered into 2006. I say I think he nailed it, that I had a great time and great food but am a little concerned by the lack of customers.

Mark Manger

Executive chef John Daly III lines up lamb chops at Cuba Libre.

Location Info

Map

Cuba Libre Bistro & Wine Bar

12684 W. Indore Place
Littleton, CO 80127

Category: Bars/Clubs

Region: Southwest Denver Suburbs

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Details

12684 West Indore Place, Littleton, 303- 904-3707. Hours: 4 p.m.-close daily

Empanadas: $8
Shrimp-stuffed calamari: $12
Croquets: $6
Tamales: $12
Lobster ceviche: $15< br>Pork chops: $18
Lamb: $28
Ropa vieja: $15
Stuffed chicken: $18

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More About

• Littleton
• Russel Evans
• Wolfgang Puck
• Eating Out
• Food and Cooking

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"Really?" she asks, her accent thick. "When did you come in?"

I tell her, and she says I should've been there last weekend. The place was packed, standing-room only, forty-minute wait at the door. Weekends -- most weekends, anyhow -- are busy. So I ask about weeknights.

"Slow," she says. "Sometimes slow. But they're getting better." She mentions the Applebee's across the street, how it is always full, how she thinks the people out in this end of Littleton deserve better.

"Our heart is here," she says. "That's why we're here. Things will pick up soon."